Summer 1997 Volume 7, Number 1

University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh

Oshkosh, WI 54901-8642

Telephone: (920) 424-7115 or (920) 424-4105

FAX: (920) 424-0292

E-mail: gulley@vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu

I’m not sure what it was, the warmth of a Texas spring or great Tex-Mex and barbecue cooking, but I think historical geographers made a fine showing at the Fort Worth meeting. Sessions that received a great deal of comment included both sessions honoring J.B. Jackson, the Author meets Critic session on The Lie of the Land, and the session on "Moral Geographies" with John Opie. There were other excellent sessions as well, and perhaps they have inspired the vigorous efforts afoot to organize sessions for Boston. Already I have heard of several efforts underway -- one on Olmsted, another on the geography of labor, Edgar Casey has agreed to join us, a poster session is taking shape, and Cathy Kindquist is organizing sessions with an environmental focus. This bodes well for next year’s AAG. If you have a special session, please press ahead and send me word. I will post the information in the spring newsletter and the home page and also confer HGSG sponsorship. Please try to fill up the time slots with the full number of presenters and if possible, seek joint sponsorship from other specialty groups.

A few years back we had a councillor who organized special sessions and coordinated those organized by others. Somehow this position has been lost. Volunteers have assisted, but now there is no individual taking on this chore. I will suggest at the next business meeting that we add another councillor to serve as special session organizer. Currently, one councillor oversees the student paper awards process and the second lines up candidates and tallies the votes for officers. With another officer, we will have greater consistency in session planning.

Please take a look at the June AAG Newsletter. The call for alternate format sessions is a practical attempt by the central office to permit maximum participation, without making each day a grueling ordeal. For those of you who missed the business meeting, I relayed the urging of the AAG to develop alternate format sessions. One suggestion was a poster session in which each participant gave a very brief (3 minute) summary of their work. This would be followed by the typical poster session one-on-one discussion. In theory, it would allow more papers in one room during the normal time allotment. The AAG argued that if the membership at large did not reduce the total number of sessions, the program would commence at 7 a.m. and run until 7 p.m. I know we already feel the allotments are too brief, but if we organize a few alternate-format sessions, others will be able to continue presenting in the traditional manner.

Looking ahead to Hawaii, I contacted a charter airline and discovered that a 757, at 91% capacity, would cost about $1100/per passenger (San Francisco to Hawaii and return). If you would be interested, please send me an e-mail. I would like to get a preliminary count to determine if this is feasible. My thinking is that with 90% of the seats sold, we could offer a dozen free seats to graduate students.

Another option is to develop a scholarship fund for graduate student travel, as most other specialty groups and the AAG are doing. We could assess non-student members a higher annual fee for two years to build up a kitty. In addition, I would propose that individual members contribute any honoraria to the fund. If you review a book manuscript or give an invited lecture, donate the honorarium next year. This would require no denial and would assist our graduate students in reaching Hawaii.

Survey data have been used to good effect in numerous research projects involving historical geographers. Sources such as the Domesday Book have provided valuable "grist" for the historico-geographic "mill" in the past. Teaching faculty who read this newsletter may be excused for subconsciously wandering toward the topic of "student opinion" when the word survey is uttered. Our experience with those data is ongoing and does not always provide as pleasant or confirming a sensation as the discovery of data about past landscapes.

Anyone who has recently eaten at a restaurant, stayed in a hotel, or rented a car will doubtless recall the experience of receiving a card with an invitation to fill in numbers for an assortment of questions in order to indicate that the meal, visit, or drive was indeed fulfilling and satisfying. Anything less than a perfect score is interpreted as an indication of either utter dissatisfaction or lack of understanding of the process of "quality assessment."

Readers will find two surveys of yet another sort in this issue of Past Place. The target group for each survey is different: one asks graduate students for information about their experience and interests in historical geography, while the other addresses faculty, particularly those who teach courses about the subject. I encourage you to take the few minutes needed to compile adequate responses to the questions asked, since your input is necessary for these researchers to gather the data necessary to gauge activities and attitudes among a substantial share of our specialty group’s membership. You may recall that I issued a call in a previous issue of this newsletter for similar information about teaching historical geography. While I was quite disappointed that only one percent of the members responded, the quality of the information offered was high. The relative brevity of the current surveys requires little time or effort.

HGSG membership stands at about 450 in recent years, and anecdotal information about our activities seems to be the primary source of data regarding our interests and responsibilities. The listserv has opened up another avenue of discussion and is a valuable adjunct to this newsletter and personal networks. While each of these data sources provides a glimpse of the activities and issues with which our members are engaged, none provides the more comprehensive view that surveys that enjoy high response rates can.

As newsletter editor, I also wish to invite readers to submit reactions to and suggestions for Past Place. In this case, there is no formal set of questions. I am interested to know about how useful you find the information as published, material you find especially valuable, and sections that you seldom consider. Please offer any specific suggestions about changes that you believe would improve the newsletter. My addresses and numbers appear on page one. (By the way, for those readers who send responses to either survey and my informal request for feedback, feel free to reject the next card thrust at you by a waiter, hotel clerk, or car rental agent. You can rest assured that your time will have been better spent on assessing your discipline.)

Steven Silvern, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, was co-winner of the AAG’s 1997 Nystrom competition for his paper, "Spatial Ideologies and the Politics of Wisconsin-Ojibwe Treaty Rights: Negotiating State-Tribal Relations." The source of material for this paper was his dissertation, "Nature, Territory, and Identity in the Wisconsin Ojibwe Treaty Rights Conflict" (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1995). Meghan Cope, University of Buffalo, was also co-winner. Her paper was titled "Households and Structuration of Place: Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1920-1939" and was derived from her dissertation, "For Better and for Worse: Gender, Ethnicity, and Class in the Construction of Scale: Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1920-1939" (University of Colorado-Boulder, 1995).

First Nations Women in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia." Winner of this year’s Ph.D.-level Andrew H. Clark award ($250) was Stephanie Abbot Roper, Univeristy of Kansas. Her paper was titled "Mitchell Makes a Map: John Mitchell’s 1755 Cartographic War against the French." Scott C. Roper, University of Kansas, garnered an honorable mention in the Andrew H. Clark competition for his paper, "The Finished Place: New England as America’s Europe." HGSG members appreciate the efforts of students who prepared papers for the competitions and of the judges who reviewed the submissions. (See the announcement below regarding the student paper competition to be held during 1998.)

In April, 1997, I was elected as the student representative to the HGSG. I am completing my Ph.D. at Queen's University (Kingston, Ontario), and my research focuses on the use of land settlement initiatives as an alternative to direct relief in western Canada during the Great Depression.

The HGSG hopes that more students will participate in the Specialty Group. Heidi Nast, coordinator of the HGSG student paper competition, will soon be providing information about the next competition to be held at the next AAG meeting in Boston, and I encourage you to submit papers. In addition, if you have ideas about how the HGSG can better serve student interests, please do not hesitate to let me know.

The HGSG would also like to know more about its student members and the research they are pursuing. Could you please take a few moments to respond to the following questions and send a brief reply to me? I will compile the results and report to you in the next newsletter. Please send your response to me via e-mail or by ordinary mail at the addresses below. Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions.

1. Are you pursuing a Master's degree or a Doctorate? At what institution?

2. What is your topical interest within historical geography (i.e., social, environmental, urban)?

3. What is your regional interest (i.e., US, Canada, Europe)?

4. What, in general, is the subject of your research?

5. Upon receiving your degree, do you intend to seek employment in the academic world or in government or private industry?

Contact: Dawn Bowen, Dept. of Geography, Mary Washington College, Fredericksburg, VA 22401

E-mail: dbowen@mwcgw.mwc.edu.

Eight months ago, I mailed a questionnaire to 330 historical geographers who are faculty at colleges and universities across the U.S., surveying them on the trends and strengths of historical geography in the U.S. today. I also posted the questionnaire on the Historical Geography Internet Discussion Group listserv run by Anne Mosher. The response was fantastic -- over 100 persons replied. Thank you all! I also wish to express my sincere gratitude to those who included copies of syllabi in their response. Each of these respondents will receive a copy of survey findings from me this fall.

For those who missed the chance to participate in last fall's survey, a copy of the questionnaire appears below. In addition, I will make a second mailing this coming fall. I hope to publish the final results in an appropriate geographical journal. Information about each participant is gathered to insure the integrity of the survey. Responses will be grouped and reported on anonymously. Please give as many responses as you feel appropriate for each numbered question. Thank you for completing this survey. Please return it to one of the addresses below.

Participant's Name:

Address:

Faculty position:

1. Who do you consider to be the most outstanding practitioners of historical geography in the U.S. today?

2. What U.S. departments do you feel offer the strongest historical geography programs? (Rank them if you feel it is appropriate).

3. What questions or topics do your historical interests tend to focus on? (Please include a general place and time in your response).

4. What historical geography courses do you teach? (Please designate whether graduate or undergraduate courses, how often you offer them, and, on average, how many students enroll).

5. What books do you require for the above course(s)? (Brief title(s) and last name of author(s) will suffice. If possible, please enclose your syllabus for each course).

6. Where did you earn your Ph.D. (or highest degree)? And who was your major advisor there? (Please note if your degree was in a discipline other than geography).

7. How many graduate students do you advise who are specializing in historical geography? How many have advised in the past? (Please designate whether they are, or were, M.A. or Ph.D. students).

8. What jobs have your past advisees gone on to take?

9. Have you moved in the last five years? (If so, please state from where to where you last moved).

10. How would you assess the strength of Historical Geography as a subdiscipline today?

11. How do you define Historical Geography?

12. Any additional comments or suggestions? And would you like me to notify you of the results?

Contact: Benjamin Y. Dixon, Dept. of Geography, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019

Telephone: (405) 325-5325 or E-mail: bdixon@ou.edu

September 25-29, 1997

The 1997 annual meeting of the Eastern Historical Geography Association will

convene in Pittsburgh at the University of Pittsburgh on Thursday, September

25, and end on Sunday, September 29. Hosted by Edward K. Muller, the 1997 EHGA meeting will focus on the theme of industrial restructuring and its socio-geographical dimensions. While papers related to this theme will get priority, papers on any topic are welcome. The tentative program includes Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday paper sessions, along with a Friday field trip up the Monongahela River Valley to Connellsville, and a Saturday field trip to Vandergrift (led by Anne Mosher). Further information regarding accommodation, transportation, and graduate student support is available from Dr. Muller.

Contact: Edward K. Muller, University of Pittsburgh, Dept. of History, 3PO1 Forbes Quadrangle, Pittsburgh, PA 15260

Telephone: 412-648-7451, FAX: 412-648-9074, or E-mail: ekmuller+@pitt.edu

Cosponsored by the North Caroliniana Society and the University Library’s North Carolina Collection, this map conference will be held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on October 3 and 4, 1997. The conference will memorialize the late William P. Cumming and honor the forthcoming new edition of Cumming’s classic volume, The Southeast in Early Maps, as enlarged and revised by Louis De Vorsey, Jr. Confirmed speakers include David Woodward, Editor of The History of Cartography, on that subject; Ralph E. Ehrenberg, Chief of the Library of Congress’s Geography and Map Division, on the mapping of North America; Louis De Vorsey, reviser of the new volume, on the Southeast in early maps; and Kenneth Nebenzahl, premier map collector and author, on map collecting and collections. Additional sessions, emphasizing North Carolina in maps, will be accompanied by an exhibit of historic maps in the North Carolina Collection Gallery.

Contact: H. G. Jones or Robert G. Anthony, Jr., North Carolina Collection, UNC Campus Box 3930, Chapel Hill, NC 27514-8890

Telephone: (919) 962-1172 or FAX: (919) 962-4452

The Newberry Seminar in Rural History seeks proposals for papers to be presented at the Winter and Spring 1998 sessions. The seminar provides graduate students, faculty, and independent scholars an opportunity to gather in a casual intellectual setting to explore a

wide variety of concerns within rural history. We encourage the presentation of works-in-progress and drafts; graduate student papers are particularly welcome.

Three sessions have been scheduled for the 1997-98 calendar. The autumn seminar has been booked and is scheduled for Nov. 15, 1997. The winter seminar is tentatively set for early March 1998, while the spring seminar is slated for May 1998. Seminars are held on Saturdays. A registration fee (approximately $17; waived for presenters) covers the cost of the seminar. Lunch is included in the registration fee.

Those interested in presenting a paper should submit a brief proposal before September 15, 1997. If you are a graduate student, indicate when you expect to complete your

dissertation.

Contact: Ian McGiver, c/o Rural History Seminar, Dr. Wm. M. Scholl Center for Family and Community History, Newberry Library, 60 West Walton St., Chicago IL 60610-3380

Telephone: (773) 624-8982 or E-mail: imcgiver@midway.uchicago.edu

The theme of this interdisciplinary association’s conference for 1998 is "By Body Bound." Conference site is the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Organizers invite presentations from scholars in multiple disciplines that focus on cultural, social, historical, literary, aesthetic, political, scientific, and philosophical perspectives on the nineteenth-century body. A variety of nineteenth-century materials, such as its art and artifacts; literature; religious, scientific, or legal writing; social, political, and economic debate may be considered.

Proposals for twenty-minute papers, as well as for panels or for other topics for open sessions are welcome. All materials should reach the Program Directors by mail no later than October 1, 1997.

Contact: David Stewart, Dept. of Art, Roberts Hall, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899

E-mail: stewartd@email.uah.edu or

Julie English Early, Dept. of English, Morton Hall, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899

E-mail: earlyj@email.uah.edu

May 6-10, 1998

Papers may address any aspect of vernacular architecture in North America or elsewhere and should be primarily analytical rather than descriptive in content. The selection committee especially welcomes proposals from scholars investigating the landscape and built environment of the Greater Chesapeake. Proposals may be for either a twenty-minute paper on a subject that the author has extensively researched or a ten-minute "work in progress" report. Submissions must be postmarked by October 1, 1997. Only one submission per author will be accepted.

Contact: Orlando Ridout V, Office of Research, Survey, and Registration, Maryland Historical Trust, 100 Community Place, Crownsville, MD 21032-2023

Telephone: (410) 514-7642.

American Society for Environmental History: San Antonio, Tex.

May 21-25, 1998

This regional conference will focus on one of the Southwest’s most contentious issues: water.

Contact: Char Miller, History Dept., Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212

E-mail: Fmiller@swt.edu

This meeting will explore western history's claims on American historical scholarship and will offer scholars the opportunity to consider prospects for the field and the historical discipline at the approach of the 21st century. The program committee invites proposals for traditional panels and papers for the conference, as well as less formal and more experimental presentations which make use of film, music, and art. In an effort to explore and excavate the shifting and dynamic meanings of "the West" and "western history," proposals approaching the West from myriad vistas (transnational, environmental, postwestern, and global approaches) are welcomed, along with ideas for papers and panels which mine the richness of the western past in all its multiplicity of peoples, of landscapes, of regions. All submissions should be sent by August 31, 1997.

Contact: Virginia Scharff, Co-chair, 1998 WHA Program Committee, Dept. of History, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1181

Telephone: (505) 277-2451 or FAX: (505) 277-6023

The Historical Geography Specialty Group (HGSG) will sponsor three student competitions this year: The Ralph Brown Award for papers written by Master's level students; The Andrew Hill Clark Award for papers written at the Ph.D. level; and The Applied Historical Geography Award for projects of an applied nature.

Eligibility for the first two awards is open to any graduate student who has or will present a paper at any professional conference during the 1997-98 "conference year." The latter is defined as beginning the day after the 1997 AAG Annual Meeting and ending the last day of the 1998 Annual Meeting. Students wishing to participate in the competitions for the first two awards should send a conference-length paper of no more than 11 typed, double-spaced pages plus notes, figures, etc. to each of the persons listed below. Students wishing to enter the Applied competition should submit a project description of no more than 11 typed, double-spaced pages plus supporting materials such as photographs, site plans, etc. to each of the persons listed below.

Each award carries with it a $250 First Prize. Second prizes of lesser amounts may be awarded at the discretion of the competition judges. Please note: Re- the Ralph Brown Award--If the paper you wish to enter is based upon research conducted while you were a Master's student, you are eligible to enter this competition, even if you are now a Ph.D. student. Regardless of the competition which you enter, please indicate in a cover letter to which one you are applying and include your e-mail address, if you have one.

Papers must be received by 1 March 1, 1998. Send one copy each to: Heidi J. Nast (see address information below); George Henderson, Dept. of Geography and Regional Development, University of Arizona, Harvill Buildilng, Box #2, Tucson, AZ 85721; and Ann Knowles, Mellon Fellow in Geography, Pendleton East, Wellesley College, Wellesley MA 02181.

Contact: Heidi J. Nast, HGSG Student Competition Coordinator, The International Studies Program, DePaul University, 2320 North Kenmore Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614-3298.

Telephone: (773) 325-7882, Fax: (773) 325-7452, or E-mail: hnast@wppost.depaul.edu

Congratulations to the following recently elected HGSG officers. Members cast ballots at the HGSG business meeting in Fort Worth. Cathy Kindquist (Radford, Va.) is secretary-treasurer; Christopher Boone (California State University, Los Angeles) is councillor; and Dawn Bowen (Queens University) is student representative.

Staff at the Newberry Library are compiling the boundary changes of all United States counties, from their earliest origins to 1990. This project involves basic research in primary sources. Because most counties have changed size and shape several times, the researchers’ mission is to gather complete and accurate data on the historical changes in county configurations and locations. Financial support for the project has come from the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Newberry Library, and individuals and private foundations.

The sources and methodology are straightforward. Colonial/territorial and state session laws are focal sources, because counties are the creatures of their states. Other primary sources are consulted as needed, as are secondary sources and old maps. Secondary materials and old maps can be valuable in identifying lost landmarks and clarifying the geographical notions that were held by people who passed boundary legislation. Using copies of the laws, project staff plot the boundary lines on a modern base map, measure the resulting county

areas, and construct a chronology of changes in the state and county lines.

To date, dissemination has been via printed books--one volume per state, except for very small states. Scribner's has published twelve volumes covering seventeen states: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island; New Hampshire and Vermont; New York; Pennsylvania; Indiana; Michigan; Wisconsin; Maryland, Delaware, and District of Columbia; Kentucky; Mississippi; Alabama; Florida. In the year or so ahead the volumes scheduled are Illinois, South Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia, North Carolina, and Iowa.Work has begun on digital products, such as cartographic data files for use in GIS (geographic information systems) and CD versions of the books, but those are still in the future.

In each volume, data are presented in many different ways in order to help readers with different interests. Information on the historical development of the county lines is presented in three principal ways. First, there is a consolidated chronology, a single series of brief verbal

descriptions of the county and state boundary changes, together with citations to the primary sources for each change. Second, the data are organized by county: for each county there is a brief chronology (including the county area in square miles that results from each change) and a matching set of maps that provide a separate map for each different county configuration. The scale of nearly all maps is one inch to eight miles. Third, there is a section aimed at researchers who want maps appropriate for different sets of census data. Here there is a list of all censuses and equivalents --colonial/territorial, state, and federal -- for each state, followed by a series of state-level outline maps that depict the full county network on the date appropriate for each census. A full bibliography concludes each volume.

Workers on this project are extremely interested in learning about research or teaching that uses historical counties and, therefore, ask every reader of this article who is involved with them to share your experience with John Long. He would especially like to receive feedback from people who have used our atlas.

Contact: John H. Long, Editor, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries, The Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton St., Chicago, IL 60610

Telephone: (312) 755-3602 or E-mail: longj@newberry.org

Historical Methods will begin a feature devoted to previously unpublished time series of U.S. historical data that may appear in the forthcoming Millennial Edition of the Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to the Present. Contributions will describe how data were constructed and provide detailed notes on sources.

Historical Methods believes such a feature is needed as the work to assemble the forthcoming Millennial Edition of Historical Statistics advances. This new fourth edition of the classic reference work, previously published by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, will be published in print and electronic versions in the year 2000 by Cambridge University Press. The Millennial Edition is a collaborative project of the scholarly community and will include the fruits of quantitative historical scholarship from the fields of social, economic, political, and demographic history published during the last twenty-five years. Because access to data and detailed instructions for replicating data are prerequisites for any science, the editors of the Millennial Edition would like to see previously unpublished data and appropriate technical descriptions appear in Historical Methods in advance of publication in the reference work.

Manuscripts may be of any length, but the best candidates for publication will be short notes consisting of a statement of significance, a table and a simple graphic of the time-series data, and a technical discussion describing the methods of data collection and construction with full bibliographic references. These technical notes should be sufficiently detailed to permit another scholar to reconstruct the data series.

Contact: Charles Wetherell, Editor, Historical Methods, Dept. of History, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521

Telephone: (909) 787-5239, FAX: (909) 787-5299, or E-mail: methods@citrus.ucr.edu

Volume 62 (1998) of WJC will include a group of papers on the topic of "spaces." While space has traditionally been viewed as an important context of face-to-face communication, scholars in a variety of disciplines have recently called for broader explorations of the epistemology of space. They have noted that identity and knowledge are profoundly spatial (as well as temporal), and that this condition structures meaningful embodiment and performance. They have argued that scholars need to begin to explore how communication is influenced by the cultural and historical mediation of phenomena such as boundaries, position, motion, occupation, and inhabitation.

To address this relatively unexplored terrain in communication studies, WJC invites essays which advance understanding by addressing the moral, political, and pedagogical aspects of space. Potential topics might include (but are not limited to) professional and

disciplinary practices of spatialization (such as cartography); technologically-mediated worlds (such as cyber-space); the social significance of borders and boundaries (for example, for immigrants); gendered and ethnic experiences of space (such as the home); the phenomenology and enactment of relational spaces (such as isolation); and the use of space as template, scheme and metaphor in social life (as in hierarchial organization).

Essays should be original submissions of ten to 25 double-spaced pages, including endnotes and references. Deadline for submissions is October 1, 1997.

Contact: Leah R. Vande Berg, Communication Studies Dept., California State University,

Sacramento, Sacramento, CA 95819-5070

E-mail: vandeberglr@csus.edu

The historical geography discussion group is up and running, thanks to Anne Mosher at Syracuse University. For instructions on how to subscribe, see the HGSG home page (see address below).

http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/geo/histgeo/histgeo.htm

Studies in Landscape Architecture at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., is a library and research collection that also offers fellowships and grants. For information on the library and collection, visit the site address below. For information on fellowships, go the the "DO Home" from the address below to the "General Information" and finally to "Fellowships."

http://www.doaks.org/LandscapeArchitecture.html

Contact: Terence Young, Studies in Landscape Architecture, Dumbarton Oaks, 1703-32nd Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20007

Telephone: (202) 339-6460 or FAX: (202) 625-0432

Please send the editor items that may be of interest to other readers of this newsletter. The deadline for submissions for the Winter 1998 issue is Monday, January 5, 1998. This date will allow publication in a timely manner, making available information about the Spring 1998 AAG meeting and other events during the first half of 1998. For all but the briefest announcements, please send a copy of the notice on diskette or by e-mail. (Contact the editor if you have questions about file formats.)

Contact: Harold E. Gulley (Addresses and numbers appear on page one of this issue.)